You Can't Say That! Quotes

“Censorship reflects a society's lack of confidence in itself.”
― Leonard S. Marcus, You Can't Say That!: Writers for Young People Talk About Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell

“Intellectually I know free speech will prevail--it almost always does--and I know that some good conversations come out of it. But it's still harrowing to have to face such intolerance on your home ground, and it never feels good to know that people have to go through that.”
― David Levithan, You Can't Say That!: Writers for Young People Talk About Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell

“We spend so much time urging children to trust us to help them with their problems. Yet we don’t even have the courage to let them read books in which those problems are named for what they are, or to let them freely talk about those problems. So the question I have is this: Why should children trust us? That’s the part that I think the censors have not thought through carefully.”
― Leonard S. Marcus, You Can't Say That! Writers for Young People Talk About Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell

“A book cannot change the inner core of who you are. It can't alter what you came with down the birth canal and into this world. But a book can validate, comfort, educate, and enlighten. Books can help make this a more accepting, respectful, and more celebratory world.”
― Lesléa Newman, You Can't Say That!: Writers for Young People Talk About Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell

“So often people just assume, and then they act on assumptions. At the end of the day, that's what so much of this is about. You make assumptions, and a book may get banned. You make assumptions based on racial bias, and someone dies.”
― Angie Thomas, You Can't Say That!: Writers for Young People Talk About Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell

“Yes, I told you to speak up and speak out. But I would be doing a great disservice if I didn't address the fact that so often when you do, people will criticize you for how you say things as opposed to listening to what you're saying.”
― Angie Thomas, You Can't Say That!: Writers for Young People Talk About Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell

“I don't think adults think about this, but when you ban a book, what you are essentially doing is telling the kids who see themselves in that book that their story makes you uncomfortable. Their life makes you uncomfortable. They make you uncomfortable...you're saying, I don't want to know more about you. I don't want to know you. That's the message that censorship sends.”
― Angie Thomas, You Can't Say That!: Writers for Young People Talk About Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell

“That's really what code-switching is. It's censorship in a world that tells Black people all the time that we are too much or not enough. So we change the way we speak and present ourselves to make other people comfortable, because we are afraid of how they will view us and treat us if we don't.”
― Angie Thomas, You Can't Say That!: Writers for Young People Talk About Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell

“I wanted to show that the people who try to censor don't hate children and are not evil. In their minds they are protecting children. They are doing i from a place of love. It's just that it doesn't work., because children actually participate in this mess called living. The best we can do is walk alongside them. But we can't hide things from them.”
― Meg Medina, You Can't Say That!: Writers for Young People Talk About Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell

“I think we have to acknowledge that, within Own Voices, authors are sometimes fringe members of their group. I look at myself. I'm writing about the Mexican community, the border community, the mixed-race community. But I've always felt like a fringe member of it. Maybe my studying it and writing about it is my way of being more a part of it. Being on the fringes can be a good place to report from.”
― Matt de la Peña, You Can't Say That!: Writers for Young People Talk About Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell

“A book is bigger than a book. A book can be in more places than I can ever be. Who knows what impact it might have?”
― Matt de la Peña, You Can't Say That!: Writers for Young People Talk About Censorship, Free Expression, and the Stories They Have to Tell